To complete your review, whether over the phone or online, we'll need details of all of your income and expenditure. Your budget will show the figures on a calendar monthly basis as most of your bills and debts require a monthly payment.
Income
We need to know all the income you receive. This includes wages, pensions, child benefit, tax credits, board payments and any other benefits you receive.
Expenses
We also need to know what you spend. We’ll ask you for your priority costs, such as rent or mortgage and utility bills, and your everyday costs, such as food shopping and travel.
To help you work out your everyday costs check your bank statements and write down everything you buy over a month. Keeping your receipts will also help you with this. You can then add up the figures and work out an average monthly amount for everyday items.
Our expenditure tracker will help you to keep a record of all your monthly expenditure.
Although the majority of bills are paid monthly, you may also have costs that are less frequent such as dentist bills and road tax.
To budget for these, work out how much you would spend on these in a year and divide that by 12. This is the amount you need to budget for every month.